Adopted Black children to testify against white parents accused of treating them as ‘slaves’, trial told
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Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather are on trial for human trafficking, child abuse and forced child labor. Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather, who are both white, were arrested after two of their five children were found locked up in a shed outside their Sissonville home, near Charleston, in October 2023.
![[Lantz and Whitefeather are on trial after two of their children were found locked inside a shed on their property in October 2023]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/06/25/23/Screenshot%202024-06-25%20at%206.30.29%E2%80%AFPM.png)
Opening statements began Tuesday in Kanawha County with Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Madison Tuck telling the court that soon after the family moved from Washington to West Virginia in April 2023, their neighbors grew concerned about the children.
![[Lantz faces charges of human trafficking, child abuse and forced child labor]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/06/25/22/Screenshot%202024-06-25%20at%205.44.14%E2%80%AFPM.png)
Tuck said the neighbors will testify about the alleged abuse they claimed to have witnessed at the family’s home, which included seeing the children being forced to work on the property, stand for long periods of time and even using a portable toilet in the yard – all of which was reported to Child Protective Services (CPS).
![[Whitefeather was arrested alongside Lantz and is standing trial on the same abuse charges]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/06/25/22/Screenshot%202024-06-25%20at%205.44.48%E2%80%AFPM.png)
One neighbor’s claims of seeing two children being locked in a shed by Lantz is what prompted the 911 call in October 2023. Deputies forced their way into a shed to find a teenage boy and girl inside who had been deprived of adequate food and hygienic care, and the room had no running water or bathroom facilities, according to a criminal complaint.
Inside the main house, a 9-year-old girl was found alone crying in a loft about 15 feet high with no protection from falling. No adults were at the home at the time. Lantz and Whitefeather were later arrested and arraigned on 16 counts each accusing them of civil rights violations, human trafficking, forced labor, gross child neglect and falsifying an application seeking a public defender. All but one of the counts are felonies.
